On Birthdays
*sighhhhhh*
So, you know how every year, my birthday is like the one f*ing day I have the right to do whatever the hell I please without feeling guilty over it? I've improved that a little bit this year, had a lot of good days - largely due to a couple of well-paying gigs and a windfall from my dad - turns out it's a lot easier not to feel guilty if you have money in your pocket - but still. My birthday's always been MY day, my special day and stuff. Well, this year, what with being sick and the insanity in the country and this that and whatever, I just... I don't feel it. I woke up today - my birthday's tomorrow - feeling cheated out of that pleasant week of anticipation which always comes just before. Heck, the only nice thing about being another year older is the thrill of Le Birthday.
Of course, some people won't be having another birthday - such as this kid, Gaber "Jika" Salah:
I won't share the image of him being shot to death with the "nonlethal" pellets, because it's disturbing and, well, you can find it easily enough.
Actually - his image
has been transformed into an icon (note the t-shirts, too)
...which is a lot better than the horrible article I stumbled upon, while looking for this photo, about this woman in England whose boyfriend knocked her out and gouged out her eyes with his fingers, blinding her.
IDK. What i shall do is go to my parents' house, where I can eat noodles and indulge in comfort as well as comfort food.
(Incidentally, fuckin' A that the "C" part of "H/C" works - when I was flat on my back with high blood pressure a few days ago, BFF came over and spent some time with me and just gently stroked my shoulders, and I felt WAY better not long afterwards. I guess a good shot of oxytocin does have therapeutic properties after all!)
But I'm kind of disturbed that all I care about in this new uprising against the SOB's is me-me-me. Really, I'm disturbed. All my blog posts seem very self-centered, in contrast to people who actually care about something outside their own brain. I've tried so long to work on that, and it doesn't seem to be helping.
Yesterday I saw this woman in person for the first time.
Her name's Khadiga and she was 69 last year, when this photo was taken. She was with the Tahrir people for the entire 18 days when this photo was taken. She was taken with a bunch of revolutionaries and beaten. Yesterday, I took part, now that the danger is over, with a group of friends, in a demonstration in front of the Presidential Palace. We drove amid the walkers - I can just hear one of my LJ pals commenting that I'm not a good walker - and parked close to the Palace. When someone pointed her out to me, she was in a wheelchair. She'd been beaten in the last demonstrations - Brotherhood militias and police, whose MO was to drag someone out of the crowd and beat them up/torture them - and they'd damaged her legs so she couldn't walk. And she still came, in a wheelchair.
(And instead of admiring her, all I can do is seethe with despicable, despicable envy at her courageous nature and wish I could be like her - I'm thirty years fucking younger than she is - and curse my own weakness. . Oh well - at least I'm honest about not being noble and not having noble thoughts.)
I might share some lies and the lying liars who tell them from my Facebook, but right now I'm too fucking exhausted.
So, you know how every year, my birthday is like the one f*ing day I have the right to do whatever the hell I please without feeling guilty over it? I've improved that a little bit this year, had a lot of good days - largely due to a couple of well-paying gigs and a windfall from my dad - turns out it's a lot easier not to feel guilty if you have money in your pocket - but still. My birthday's always been MY day, my special day and stuff. Well, this year, what with being sick and the insanity in the country and this that and whatever, I just... I don't feel it. I woke up today - my birthday's tomorrow - feeling cheated out of that pleasant week of anticipation which always comes just before. Heck, the only nice thing about being another year older is the thrill of Le Birthday.
Of course, some people won't be having another birthday - such as this kid, Gaber "Jika" Salah:
I won't share the image of him being shot to death with the "nonlethal" pellets, because it's disturbing and, well, you can find it easily enough.
Actually - his image
has been transformed into an icon (note the t-shirts, too)
...which is a lot better than the horrible article I stumbled upon, while looking for this photo, about this woman in England whose boyfriend knocked her out and gouged out her eyes with his fingers, blinding her.
IDK. What i shall do is go to my parents' house, where I can eat noodles and indulge in comfort as well as comfort food.
(Incidentally, fuckin' A that the "C" part of "H/C" works - when I was flat on my back with high blood pressure a few days ago, BFF came over and spent some time with me and just gently stroked my shoulders, and I felt WAY better not long afterwards. I guess a good shot of oxytocin does have therapeutic properties after all!)
But I'm kind of disturbed that all I care about in this new uprising against the SOB's is me-me-me. Really, I'm disturbed. All my blog posts seem very self-centered, in contrast to people who actually care about something outside their own brain. I've tried so long to work on that, and it doesn't seem to be helping.
Yesterday I saw this woman in person for the first time.
Her name's Khadiga and she was 69 last year, when this photo was taken. She was with the Tahrir people for the entire 18 days when this photo was taken. She was taken with a bunch of revolutionaries and beaten. Yesterday, I took part, now that the danger is over, with a group of friends, in a demonstration in front of the Presidential Palace. We drove amid the walkers - I can just hear one of my LJ pals commenting that I'm not a good walker - and parked close to the Palace. When someone pointed her out to me, she was in a wheelchair. She'd been beaten in the last demonstrations - Brotherhood militias and police, whose MO was to drag someone out of the crowd and beat them up/torture them - and they'd damaged her legs so she couldn't walk. And she still came, in a wheelchair.
(And instead of admiring her, all I can do is seethe with despicable, despicable envy at her courageous nature and wish I could be like her - I'm thirty years fucking younger than she is - and curse my own weakness. . Oh well - at least I'm honest about not being noble and not having noble thoughts.)
I might share some lies and the lying liars who tell them from my Facebook, but right now I'm too fucking exhausted.